The costs of retiree benefits for educators, including benefits for previous retirees, are consuming a large and growing share of public spending on K–12 education. Between 2004 and 2012, pension costs for public educators rose from 11.9 to 16.7 percent of salaries. Unfunded pension liabilities of state and local governments are estimated to be roughly $1 trillion. But that trillion-dollar number, as vast as it seems, understates the true liabilities, which more than double if calculated using standard methods in financial economics.

In spite of the need for pension reform as evidenced by Detroit’s recent bankruptcy filing, pension reform is unlikely, in part because administrators in charge of the system reap the largest benefits from it. The authors of a new Education Next study find that while superintendents contribute 53 percent more to pension plans over their career span than senior career teachers, their expected benefits upon retirement are 89 percent higher than those of teachers.

Authors Cory Koedel, Shawn Ni, and Michael Podgursky point out that using salary levels from the last three years of service to determine retirement benefits, “combined with the career-cycle timing of teachers’ promotions into administrative positions, results in senior management in K–12 education enjoying the largest net benefits from these plans.” Educators’ defined-benefit plans typically provide retirees with guaranteed lifetime benefits, with the annual payout based on the number of years of service and annual salary in the final years of active employment. The article, “The School Administrator Payoff from Teacher Pensions” can be found on educationnext.org and will appear in the Fall 2013 issue of Education Next.

In Missouri and other states, the authors note, “the pension system transfers wealth from lower-income professionals to higher-income professionals. Beginning teachers are subsidizing a handsome payoff to better-paid administrators, who are the appointed guardians of the public interest in the education system.” For example, a principal’s contributions are only 14 percent higher than those of senior career teachers, but their expected benefits are 37 percent higher. At the opposite end of the spectrum, because of turnover and mobility, a young teacher can expect to contribute 30 percent of what typical career teachers contribute, but he or she can expect to collect only 18 percent of the benefits.

As senior-level administrators are both the stewards of the pension system and the recipients of the highest net benefits, the authors conclude, “There is no reason to expect school administrators or their organizations to support reforms that would provide a more modern and mobile retirement system for young educators” and suggest that districts could be recruiting young teachers more effectively by putting money in upfront salaries rather than in end-of-career pension benefits.

About the Authors
Cory Koedel is assistant professor of economics, and Shawn Ni, and Michael Podgursky are professors of economics at the University of Missouri, Columbia. The authors are available for interviews.

About Education NextEducation Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution that is committed to careful examination of evidence relating to school reform. Other sponsoring institutions are the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, part of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. For more information about Education Next, please visit: http://educationnext.org.

The McCormick Standard strongly recommends this article for the sake of an ‘honest’ dialogue about the future of public education in the United States.

CAMBRIDGE, MA –Recently, states’ definitions of what makes a student proficient in math and reading have been changing—in some cases for the better, in others for the worse. In a new Education Next article, “Despite Common Core, States Still Lack Common Standards,” authors Paul Peterson and Peter Kaplan find that even though 37 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) received a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education as incentive to join the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) consortia and raise their standards in 2009, standards still declined in rigor in 26 states and D.C. between 2009 and 2011. In the remaining 24 states, standards increased in rigor. In the period since 2007, there has been little change in state standards overall.

Comparing the percentage of students who were identified by state assessments as proficient in math and reading in 4th and 8th grade with the percentage of students from the same state who were proficient on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the authors were able to see the variations in state standards across the country. The authors then assigned grades A through F to the states based on the strength of their standards relative to all other states.

The authors explain in the study that a high grade “indicates that the state’s definition of proficient embodies higher expectations for students. It is best thought of as a high grade for ‘truth in advertising.’” A full list of the states’ grades and trends over time can be found in Table 1 of the article, on http://educationnext.org.

The CCSS were established by a national consortium sponsored by the National Governors Association. The U.S. Department of Education has waived the requirements established by the federal law, No Child Left Behind, for states that promise education reforms including the adoption of CCSS, which commits the state to set common standards with high expectations for student performance. So far, 45 states have officially adopted CCSS.

The data indicate that some states, like Tennessee, have raised the proficiency bar. Between 2009 and 2011, Tennessee’s grade rose from an F to an A. Other states that improved their standards in that time frame by a full letter grade include West Virginia (C to a B+), New York (D to a B), Nebraska (F to a C), and Delaware
(C- to a B-).

However, these gains are offset by significant drops in proficiency standards between 2009 and 2011 in New Mexico (A to a B), Washington (A to a B), Hawaii (A to a C), Montana (B to a C), and Georgia (C- to an F).

Additionally, the authors found that 8th-grade reading and math standards have converged among the states since 2003. The authors explain that this could be seen as positive news for those looking to decrease disparity in standards across states, “were it not for the fact that 8th-grade standards also declined between 2003 and 2011.”

About the Authors
Paul Peterson is professor of government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Peter Kaplan is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in government at Harvard University. The authors are available for interviews.

About Education NextEducation Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution that is committed to careful examination of evidence relating to school reform. Other sponsoring institutions are the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, part of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. For more information about Education Next, please visit: http://educationnext.org.

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice.”

– Senator Robert F. Kennedy

A 21st Century Education requires that all students learn ‘how to learn’ in order to help create new professions needed that have not yet been created… New languages, cultures and protocols are necessary tools needed to compete as global citizens in world markets and global industries.

The most successful methods and curriculum will be viewed in the Education Standard with the presumption that all children and adults may learn provided they have world class methods, curriculum, and opportunities to learn and be educated. Harvard studies emphasizing the modalities of learning; as well as a variety of literacy and communications methods will be used as world class examples of successful education methods.

The politicization of education has too often acted as a barrier to the science and art of educating all students to their potential. President Obama has most recently referred to the politicization of education as unnecessary ‘culture wars.’ Obama uses public and independent charter schools as examples of education reform. Proposals of merit pay and world class standards are currently being discussed in the Obama education.

Please join in the discussion on both levels of interest; world class methods and strategies that have proven results, as well as political challenges that prevent educators, parents and students from reaching each child in the classroom.

Literacy and the Neuhaus Education Center

Neuhaus has been long established as a resource for educators interested in reaching all children with proven literacy methods. Literacy takes on a holistic approach empowering students with the skills of; listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking strategically. Pronunciation of letters, syllables, words and statements is used as a foundation for higher order thinking and writing.

Latest Book Reviews

Admittedly, I was more than a bit skeptical of What Sex is a Republican? before I began reading it.

Books trafficking anywhere near the topic of gender tend to leave me queasy – mainly because they are so seldom done well. Most books taking up the issue of gender and society fall into either the the ‘angry-at-men feminists,’ or the ‘barefooted-pregnant-wife traditionalists.’

Given that the book runs in the neighborhood of 320 pages, I was pleased that Ms. McCormick’s book fell into neither stereotype. In fact, the coup de maître of What Sex Is a Republican? is that it had little to do with the sexes at all, and much more to do with the ‘Republicans.’